Kaito KA009 4 Way Powerd Emergency Radio Black
by Kaito
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Category: Car Audio or Theater
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: KaitoBrand: Kaito
Edition: Electronics
Model: KA009
Color: black
Publisher: Kaito
Studio: Kaito
Music Label: Kaito
Product features:
- Powered by hand crank, solar, 3AA batteries, or using a wall plug
- AM: 520 ------1710KHz
- FM: 88-- - 108 MHz
- TV Audio: Channels 2-13
- 4 Continuous short wave 4.00 to 26MHz
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Kaito KA009 4 Way Powerd Emergency Radio Black
Customer Review: Decent go-bag radio or spare radio for the money
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought one of these a couple of months ago, to have a multi-powered, small, go-bag radio that I could also use for day-to-day AM, FM, Shortwave, and Weather Band listening.
For the $30-40 it goes for from a variety of vendors, it's not bad at all.
You can't evaluate this radio with something like a CCrane AM radio, a GE SuperRadio, or other AM quality/DX portable. Nor against a Sony, Sangean, or Eton/Grundig larger, higher-price Shortwave radio. It's a jack of many trades, master of none, supplemental product.
Some specifics:
A) Shortwave: not entirely a continuous set of frequencies. Doesn't go down much below 3.7MHz on mine (4.0 on dial), so getting the lower tropical bands won't happen. No BFO so no SSB/CW reception, and thus also no using the "exalted carrier" weak-signal AM reception trick by flipping to SSB and zero-beating. Actually has a fairly hot front end. Compared to my old-but-good Sony ICF-2001 large portable and my Sangean ATS-505 medium portable, it's almost as hot as the Sony on the 49, 41, 31, 25, and 19 meter bands, and maybe a bit hotter than the Sangean. However it doesn't have nearly the selectivity of either. It's obviously a single-conversion typical 455kHz IF, with lousy IF selectivity and possibly mis-aligned, because sometimes a station will come in stronger on the image 910kHz below its frequency. Especially if the band is crowded on the real frequency and particularly on 49 through 41m. It's analog tuning with a dial that's really just a "suggestion", and it really could use a bandspread or clarifier dial because you have to tune very slowly and tweak a bit to get on-station. However it's very stable - doesn't drift a bit once tuned.
B) Weather band: It works fine.
C) Aircraft: I'm about 90 miles from the local airport, so don't expect to hear much. It has a lot of noise which is probably internally generated IM products. It might work semi-ok near an airport or near the actual transmitter locations for regional ATC centers. No loss to me, I'm not an aviator nor an airband monitoring hobbyist.
D) AM/FM broadcasts: sound just about what you expect them to do from a small speaker (paperback-book-sized) radio. Like the SW, stays on frequency once tuned in. Does quite decent nighttime AM reception from distant stations. Not an MW DX machine by any means, but a perfectly good choice for listening to "Coast-to-Coast AM" from about 4 different stations averaging 500-800 miles away from my Colorado mountain location.
E) Overall: wish it had a sleep function. But it's a very basic ANALOG radio. Power use has been fine - I've cranked it up and also left it near the window, and it's kept running for hours on me. I can put it in a window during the day with indirect but bright sunlight and get it to run just on solar at a very low volume. TV Audio band is now useless, but that's not the fault of the radio; there are no analog TV transmissions in the US anymore except for a few low-power and translator stations, and some of them have already converted. The regular stations all converted 2 years ago.
I'm happy with my purchase, based on having realistic expectations for what it does and doesn't do.
Description of Kaito KA009 4 Way Powerd Emergency Radio Black
The unit is a versatile emergency radio to keep in the trunk or take on your next camping trip. Although its performance on any given band is modest, it does receive an amazing number of bands: AM, FM, TV Audio channels 2-13, Weather 162.55-164.4 MHz, VHF high band 145-174 MHz and four shortwave bands (6-9, 9-12, 12-15 and 15-18 MHz). The versatile unit can be powered four ways: From 3 AA cells (not provided), via the built in solar cell, via the hand cranked dynamo generator (which charges the internal Ni-MH cells) or with the supplied AC adapter. Comes with earphones and antenna wire with clip. 6.5x5.4x2.6 inches (166x138x68mm 477 g).Digital Cameras & Photo Categories
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